[Yellowstone]
I'm not sure how I feel about the trip we went on to survive my angel Alli's angelversary. It was exhausting, rocky in terms of sleep, fun in fits and spurts, and above all, busy. We left Friday night to go to the house of my brother-in-law as a jumping-off point to head up to Yellowstone with two of my siblings and their families. We do this trip almost every year but not usually with so many people. Between cooking, catching geyser basins, visiting, making fires, and everything else that goes with camping, it was hard to think beyond the steps it took to survive.
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On that last night of the trip, my husband went on a wild goose chase through pouring rain to try to find a missing camera. It was terrifying. I had visions of losing someone else on that most horrible of days. But then, he was back. But that night was so rocky we broke camp and split first thing in the morning.
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That was when we went to visit with my brother-in-law and join our hearts to his as he mourned his dying wife. His fairly young wife has two kinds of cancer and was passing through her third round of chemo when she found she had a hole in her stomach and could not digest. All they can do is wait for her to pass by starvation or sepsis. There's nothing that can be done. So many shades of death on my baby's angelversary that I could scarcely think of myself or the tenth anniversary of my baby's death. We got home and went through her baby book, as usual, but I'm not sure I felt the catharsis with so much pain going on around me.
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I was dreading the day so much that when it finally came, the fact that I was too busy, too preoccupied to feel it that it almost feels like I failed to really feel the day. I feel like I failed her somehow. But yet, not feeling the day too much was the goal. Did I succeed too well? Did I fail? I know there's no right or wrong way to mourn, but even after ten years' experience of mourning, I still don't understand it.
